Monday, October 31, 2016

The past decade, I’ve been privileged to coach many senior executives. In my experience, most are caring, thoughtful and capable.

They understand and accept the burdens the come with the ‘crown’. They know they have the ability to foster opportunity, commitment and growth – or blight, stagnation and misery.

The very best senior executives accept that their job is to 1) get results, 2) create capability and 3) reinforce values. They understand that you achieve 1, by doing 2 and 3.

And 2 and 3 entail practicing, teaching and reinforcing fundamentals standards – standards of work, management and ethics or behavior.

A deep bow to these splendid leaders – long may you run!

But there another type of leader – shallow, selfish, and weak. Such leaders reject the responsibilities described above. They use their power to sidestep the fundamentals.

And so, they do stupid things. Why? Because they can, I suppose. “Harrumph, harrumph, harrumph!” they declare, “Blah-blah-blah!”

Team members are sickened, capable leaders, managers & specialists polish their resumes, and the organization rots. (Absent strong competition, e.g. a monopoly or oligopoly, this can go on for years.)

Eventually, though, the house collapses and the community is left to pick up the pieces. A pox upon such leaders!

A few decades ago, an elderly Japanese described for me a tidal wave that was engulfing more and more industries. The tidal wave expressed a fundamental shift of power – from organizations, to customers.

Price, would be fixed or falling, he told me, and the customer would expect more and more value, and be less and less tolerant of violations of safety, environment or simple decency.

I’ve seen & experienced the tidal wave rolling through industries like automotive, consumer goods, electronics, aviation and the process industries. (In my view, such industries have never been better, and we, the customers, are the beneficiaries.)

Now it’s rolling through hitherto ‘protected’ industries like financial services and healthcare. Financial services start-ups are offering checking account, credit card, mortgage and other services with less hassle, and at a fraction of the cost.